Chapter 6

Old Wounds Reopened

Harry's life wasn't getting any easier. He barely slept that night after Ron and Hermione told him about Neville and everything just seemed to be falling apart. Worse yet, that day he had Double Potions, a rigorous Transfiguration hour, plus Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures. He woke up to Ron prodding him. "Harry, mate, get up. Breakfast time."

Rolling over, Harry groaned and tried to fall back asleep. "I don't—wanna go…"

"Listen, Harry, it's the first day of class. Hermione is waiting for us already. Come on." Before he knew it, Ron was pulling him up to a standing position. "You can't sleep any longer or else we won't get any breakfast." Then Ron looked Harry in the face. His tone of voice softened as he quickly took a glance out the door. "Neville, eh?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. I couldn't fall asleep knowing what happened to him over the summer."

"I'm sorry, mate, but we had to tell you. It's somehow all connected, but I don't think even you understand how just yet."

"Nope. Let me pull on my robes and we can go down to the Great Hall soon."

The only people left in the Hall were a few stragglers as Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked in. They quickly sat down at the Gryffindor table and started eating a few pieces of toast with marmalade. Harry carefully scanned the near-empty table, looking for Neville. "I still can't believe they did that to Neville," he said quietly to Hermione and Ron.

"You didn't get much sleep last night, did you?" Hermione asked just as quietly.

"Nope. I couldn't knowing how all that had happened, him being attacked and all…"

"You know this will add up to a great significance in the end, don't you Harry?" Hermione stated. "It's bound to be all connected and related if Moody kept it from you for so long."

"I know. I just wish I knew how." The bell rang, warning them to begin their journey to their first class. Harry and Hermione walked in the direction of the dungeons while Ron traipsed off towards his Muggle Studies class (Hermione was pleasantly surprised when he told them he was going to try and take it this year: "It will be a great learning experience for you! Maybe you'll end up with your dad's job someday!" Ron didn't seem too pleased with this, but smiled weakly. Harry knew he wanted desperately to become an Auror, but now it seemed like he might have had other plans in mind.). Harry sighed. Another two hours with Snape. Just what he always wanted.

Snape wasn't in his dungeon yet when Hermione and Harry opened the door to walk in. The same people from the year before were in the classroom as the entered—all except for Anthony Goldstein and Justin Finch-Fletchley. Hannah Abbott was explaining to Harry and Hermione how Justin had decided that he just couldn't take the pressure from Snape anymore as Michael Corner came up to them. "Same with Anthony. He said he just couldn't take the stress, as much as he wants to become an Auror later on."

Harry's heart skipped a beat. "Anthony wanted to become an…Auror?"

"Yeah. Said his family has always been loyal to Dumbledore, although none of them really gained much attention because they never became fully trained Aurors."

Harry was jubilant. So the Auror profession wasn't as dire as he thought it would be. People really did want to fight Voldemort. He shot a smile at Hermione, which she gladly returned with relief. The Slytherins had gathered on the other side of the aisle. The people gathered around Draco Malfoy glanced at Harry and sniggered. "Potter survived the summer, did he? Those Death Eaters didn't scare wee Potter at all?" He was talking in an annoying baby voice. Hermione, Dean, Michael, and Hannah all gave Harry reassuring looks as they glared back at Malfoy.

"At least I have my priorities straight," Harry responded simply. "At least I don't have to grovel in front of Voldemort for acceptance."

Malfoy jumped up. "Don't you insult my family, Potter. At least I actually have a family."

The door opened with a loud, resonant bang as Snape walked in. Harry hadn't risen to Malfoy's bait—he hadn't even stood up, but Snape still managed to find something wrong with him: "Face forward, Potter. Five points from Gryffindor." Normally Harry would have seethed at the injustice Snape often dealt him. But now he felt oddly lighthearted. He had support from more people than just Hermione and Ron. The majority of the school was behind him. He felt like he could face anything, including Snape. Those hollow black eyes remained fixed on Harry's face, as if challenging him to retaliate, but Harry kept his mouth closed as he looked up at the Potions master expectantly. "Now, we will continue on from last year. I hope you have been studying hard over the break, or else I daresay this year may be…too hard for you." His eyes still lingered to the side of the room in which the Slytherins were not sitting as he let loose a greasy and evil smile. "Leave my classroom now if you know you will fail this course."

Harry fought a strong desire to just pick up his cauldron, books, and potion supplies and walk out the door of Snape's classroom forever because of the unfairness he knew was inevitable, but stayed in his seat and stared back at Snape just as icily. He would prove Snape wrong. He would become an Auror and defeat Voldemort. He would survive Snape's class. Harry thought of his parents, Cedric Diggory, Sirius, and Tonks. Their memories would pull him through.

"We will continue this course from last year by working with Veritaserum, the most powerful truth potion you can make. It will take at least a month of diligent work and careful watch over your cauldrons." At this Hermione sat up even straighter. "The instructions for the first stage are on the board," at this he flipped the blackboard around to reveal his miniscule writing spelling out a potion more complex than any potion recipes Harry had ever seen before, including the Polyjuice Potion in his second year. "Each day has a stage just like this and it will get increasingly complex. Fall behind and you receive a zero for this potion. If all turns out well, we will be finished with this in forty days. Your assignment is to research Veritserum: its uses, its restrictions, the use of it within the Ministry, and anything else…worthwhile. It should cover two rolls of parchment to be turned in to me at the beginning of class on Wednesday. You may begin." There was a rustle of paper as all students stood up to collect the supplies needed. Harry saw Hermione dig out a quill, ink, and a piece of parchment. Immediately she put a charm on the quill and it began to skate across the parchment.

"Taking a leaf out of Rita Skeeter's book by using a Quik Quotes Quill to take notes?" Harry asked her.

"No," she replied pleasantly, "it's copying down the instructions on the board down for me so I won't have to waste half of my time trying to read that tiny writing." She busied herself by walking to the front of the room to collect supplies for herself and Harry.

"Brilliant idea," Hannah said from Harry's left as he took out her own quill and parchment. Soon the entire left side of the classroom had quills frantically sliding over parchment.

Harry's heart was a bit lighter as he started adding ingredients to his cauldron. Two frog spleens, finely chopped wormwood, ten whole caterpillars… He began to chop up his wormwood just as Hermione got back from the front of the room. She chuckled slightly as she saw Harry, Dean, Hannah, and Michael's quills skating across their parchment. "You're brilliant, Hermione," Harry explained. She did nothing but shake her head.

"Writing notes behind my back?" Snape asked as he passed by Harry's table. All of the quills were still feverishly copying down the instructions from the front of the room.

"No, Professor, sir," Hermione began to explain, "you see, we just wanted to have the instructions right in front of us so we could save time…you see."

"No, Granger, I do not see. Twenty points from Gryffindor. Ten from both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. If my writing isn't clear enough for you, maybe this is: one more retaliation and you are out of my class."

Hermione bowed her head. "Yes, sir." The Slytherins chuckled appreciatively from across the room, but Hermione ignored them as Snape walked up towards his desk. "I had anticipated that," she told Harry and the rest. "Which is why I copied a few more." She quietly passed a copy of Snape's instructions back to Dean and Michael to share while she placed a second in front of herself, strategically hidden underneath her ingredients. "We'll pass this class yet, no matter what it takes."

Hermione's strategy worked. They were all careful to look up at the board on occasion, as if reading it in deep concentration and to cover Hermione's neatly copied instructions whenever Snape passed by their tables. Although he found picky mistakes with their potions, he was unable to take any more points from their Houses. Harry feverishly followed the instructions laid out in front of him as he stirred the contents in his cauldron. "If this is the first stage, I'd hate to see the fifteenth," he told Hannah and Hermione quietly, wiping sweat from his brow.

"You're doing great, Harry," Hermione said comfortingly, dumping her shredded bezoar into her cauldron. Harry did the same, and was pleased when his potion turned almost the exact same shade as Hermione's. Now all he had to do was stir it for five more minutes…

Just as Harry finished stirring and put his cauldron aside to simmer, Snape called out, "By now you should be almost prepared to simmer your potion for the two days. Start cleaning up." Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he and Hermione started to clean the ingredients from their table. Hannah and Michael appeared to be doing fairly well, but Dean was still struggling. Hermione quietly walked over to help him, avoiding Snape's eye and pretending to be cleaning the table. Harry knew she had too much experience with their Potions classes than to just walk over there to help Dean. Harry was thankful for this: at the rate things were going Gryffindor wouldn't able to afford losing any more points. He was already exhausted. This was going to be a long year.